...born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world was mad

You gotta love it: Mark Steyn’s deft takedown of the Toronto Star’s censorship/Islam-shill, Harpoon Siddiqui:

Mr Siddiqui's most recent intervention is his most desperate yet:

A Somali Canadian mosque in Toronto is being condemned, rightly so, for carrying anti-Semitic and anti-Western messages on its website. This, though, does invite a question: Where are the free-speech advocates defending the right of this group to say whatever the heck it wants? 

Er, sorry. Have I missed something? Is the Canadian "Human Rights" Commission investigating this mosque? Has Richard Warman filed one of his highly lucrative complaints against them? Are Mr Farber, the CJC and their colleagues dragging the imams into court and insisting that this mosque demonstrates why Section 13 is needed more than ever?

Why, no! And to try even to imagine the CHRC or its provincial siblings hauling a Somali mosque before their kangaroo courts is to understand how absurd Mr Siddiqui's comparison is. As he well knows, freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from criticism but freedom from government regulation, government prosecution, government fines and government silencing. "Free speech" doesn't mean some mosque should be beyond criticism; it means more criticism. It means Mr Siddiqui can call me an "Islamophobe" and I can call him a clapped out hack seeking to mire Canadian Muslims in a wholly unearned and invented victim complex, and the government sits back and says, "May the best man win. We don't have a dog in this fight."

Oh, Mark, haven’t you heard that there’s been a “paradigm shift”—at least when it comes to Somalis? Jews don’t haul Somalis into court for their bad words (not unless Somalis are prepared to bleach their skin, embrace Der Fuhrer, and post hateful comments about “the Jews” while skulking in some remote Prairie cellar); Jews mentor Somalis.

Alas, the "paradigm" remains set in stone for the "Nazis". You can bet if some paleface in Moose Jaw had been caught saying what the Somali imam did--that high heels were the work of Satanic Jewish chicks intent on corrupting the innocent--there would be hell to pay, and, soon enough, another tax-free check in a certain "Nazi hunter's" back pocket. 

Posted by: scaramouche at 17:34 | link | comments

Comments: